August 21, 2012

Your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.

Cory Doctorow at BoingBoingpicks up the video of Annie Laurie Gaylor's presentation of the history of women in atheism at CFI's Women in Secularism conference. Says Doctorow:

It's a great tour through the history -- the often secret history -- of women who fought and gave all, risking persecution for speaking out against religion and for women's rights to control their destinies.

Pakistani 11-year-old Rifta Masih could face the death penalty for allegedly violating blasphemy laws. US State Department is "disturbed."

. . . if this causes deep rifts in the community — and if those rifts cut sexist, racist, self-absorbed, hateful, “screw you, Jack, I’ve got mine” assholes out of it — I say Mazeltov. That’s not a bug. That’s a feature.

Which I guess then leads me to wonder “must I be labeled something to do what I’m already doing”?

How is this A+ thing different from, well, humanism? Ashley Miller weighs in:

There is a difference between a self-defined humanist doing something good for mankind and a self-defined atheist doing it, simply because of the massive amount of stigma associated with atheism. Proving that atheists care about other people and making the world a better place is important.

. . . the humanist community puts a lot of focus on replicating church-like communities and having chaplaincies. That’s totally cool if that’s what you want, but I personally don’t feel like it applies to me.

Here's my question: Weren't we all supposed to be calling ourselves Brights by now?

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Paul Fidalgo has been communications director of the Center for Inquiry since 2012. He holds a master’s degree in political management from George Washington University, and has worked previously for FairVote: The Center for Voting and Democracy and the Secular Coalition for America. Paul is also an actor and musician whose work includes five years performing with the American Shakespeare Center. He lives in Maine with his wife and kids. His blog is Near-Earth Object, and he tweets at @paulfidalgo.